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ReBoot Time ...and why you'll absolutely, positively, never-in-a-million-years (Mainframe years, User years, game time years, or otherwise!) figure it out. Okay, ReBoot fans. You wanna figure out the ReBoot time system? Fine. Let's sit down and try to do just that. The most specific mentions of time and aging [yes, I should say "compiling up," but won't] in the entire series were in the episodes "Talent Night" and "The Episode With No Name." We were flat-out told Enzo Matrix's age twice. So, that would be a good place to start figuring out how to convert the ReBoot time system into our time system, right? You might be surprised... Here's a chart that will probably confuse you enough to begin with:

Season number:	Enzo's binary age:	Binary age translated to base ten* age:	Actual number of years old:	"Human equivalent" age (how old they look/act):	If they're about 10 "human equivalent" years older with each birthday, Enzo should look/act:
1	01 (on his shirt)	1 (Note that the conversion problem starts right away... He's one before his first birthday!)	Less than 1	Around 9-12 (I'm working from typical fan estimates for these...)	Less than 10 or so
2 (after "Talent Night")	10 (on his shirt after "Talent Night")	2	1 (and older after "Talent Night")	Around 9-12 (but older than last season)	10 or so (and older after "Talent Night")
3 (as Matrix)	11 (or that's what Turbo says he should be)	3	2 (based on what Turbo says)	Late teens to early 20's	20 or so (and that's if he hadn't game hopped!)
4	See my Post-Season-4 Note at the bottom of this page.
* the base ten number system is the "regular" one you use in day-to-day life.

Now, if you've managed to follow along so far (if you have, I salute you!) try to stay with me just a little bit longer. You'll see in the bottom right cell of the chart above that Matrix should probably be about 20 "human equivalent" years if he hadn't game hopped. This is because Turbo says Matrix should be binary age "11" in "The Episode with No Name" (v3.2.4). Here's a snippet of their conversation: Turbo: You haven't been away as long as you think. By my reckoning, you should only be... one-one. Matrix [shocked]: What!? Turbo: Don't you know game time is accelerated? You compiled up [aged] faster in there, relative to our time. If Matrix should be binary age "11" (3 in base ten), a year has passed since he turned "10" (2 in base ten) in the episode "Talent Night." [Please note: User years and Mainframe years are actually the same amount of time, the Mainframers just age faster than us. That's why I use "human equivalent" years to estimate how old they'd be if they were human.] If Enzo was human, you probably would have placed his age at about 10 at the time of "Talent Night" (some say a little older, some say a little younger, but give me a break and go with the 10-year-old human estimate, 'kay?). That indicates sprites age 10 "human equivalent" years with each birthday. SO: When he turned binary age "11" on his second birthday, Enzo Matrix would have been the "human equivalent" of 20. AND: If Matrix was a human, you'd probably guess he's about 20, wouldn't you? I've heard estimates of Matrix's "human equivalent" age ranging from late teens to mid-20s. But 20 is close enough to the average estimate for us to work with right now. BUT: 20 "human equivalent" years old is only how old Matrix should be if he had aged normally while lost in the games. He didn't age normally. He aged at an accelerated rate thanks to game time. He should have either looked older than binary age "11" / "human equivalent" age 20 or not been so surprised to hear that was his true age. PLUS: If about a year had gone by since Matrix left Mainframe, shouldn't everyone else have aged about 10 "human equivalent" years, too? Bob & Dot & all really don't look all that different. SO: What does this mean? Well, I can explain away the discrepancy with the best of them. We could say Turbo didn't know what he was talking about when he guessed Matrix's binary age. We could say game time isn't quite as accelerated as commonly believed. We could say sprites begin to age more slowly as they reach adulthood. BUT: Let's face it. Those lines of dialogue (and MANY others) just weren't designed to hold up under thorough analysis. Maybe Mainframe Entertainment didn't realize how geeky we all really were, or maybe they didn't care. AND BESIDES: Do you really want to spend your time looking for loopholes to explain ReBoot time? Barring new info on the ReBoot time scale from Mainframe Entertainment, no one will ever be able to pin it down. Make all the "a nano is a second, a second is a day, a cycle is a week" type charts you want**, I guarantee there is evidence in the series that disagrees with you. The time system on ReBoot was always in flux. It will remain in flux. I can't force you to stop thinking about it, but I can strongly recommend you stop worrying about it. (Oh, come on. Don't deny there's quite a bit of stress over the time issue within the ReBoot fan community. I've seen the "friendly debates" and panicked charting of seconds using every prefix the metric system has ever known.) You could be off enjoying the show! **[Please note: It's not that I really hold anything against those of you who are absolutely determined to figure this out. (And for those epic fanfics so many of you love, I can see where a time chart might be a necessary evil, if only because it's expected.) It's just... I happen to believe there are so many more interesting things about ReBoot to think about and appreciate than whether a minute is a day or a week!]     POST-SEASON-4 NOTE: Even in a season where every other word out of the characters' mouths was "time," some people still hadn't had enough... I got several e-mails after Season 4 aired, insisting that the "00" seen on Enzo's shirt in a flashback clarified the whole time system and made everything work. I disagree. Long story short: To "fix" the above chart using what we saw in the flashback, we would have to do one of two things. One, we could say that the events of Talent Night didn't actually occur when Enzo was one User year old. Personally, I have to throw this idea right out because it destroys the whole joke that Talent Night is based on. It's not worth messing up a perfectly good episode just to make the time system partially stable. Two, we could say they compile up every six months. Again, to not ruin Talent Night, we'd pretty much have to assume they only celebrate every other compiling up. Possible, but... It just doesn't make much sense from a cultural perspective (yes, even if this is a made-up culture). Worth messing up one area of sprite life to fix another? Not really. You can think whatever you want, but I still don't feel like there's nearly enough evidence to suggest that the makers of ReBoot ever planned a consistent time system. And it's all so muddled at this point that I doubt they could straighten the whole thing out even if they produced two more movies that focused on the time system only. So don't break your brains on this one, kids. It's still not worth it. (back)